


lies, intended to soothe

by saintsurvivor



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, And then he comes back, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jack's hunting Kovac, Long-Distance Friendship, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016), Scared Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Voicemail, Worried Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), pls give these boys hugs, they all have issues okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27624316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: you have one new message, and three saved messagesor, four voicemails jack receives from mac
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	lies, intended to soothe

**[1]**

The first voicemail comes about only a month after Jack’s left, heavy hearted and trying hard enough not to cry that he thought he’d cracked a tooth with hard his jaw had been clenched. His army uniform was just both familiar and unfamiliar that he can’t _stand_ it, instantly flashing back to when he’d worn it last, with his bomb nerd, almost an entire lifetime, several PTSD episodes and near death experiences ago.

This voicemail isn’t actually the first one he’s got from back home, Riley seems to use his voicemail box as her own personal therapist and decompressor, sometimes karaoke machine also, the ones he gets when she’s crying, in tears and panicking are always the worst, reminding of Jack when he’d left all those years when she was just a little girl. Bozer calls, even if it is less often; more ramblings about his day, the stupid things they all get too, but there’s little tidbits that let Jack know that Bozer is trying to hold everything together and perhaps isn’t doing the best. He hears from Desi sparingly, though he’d gotten a rant from her not long after what Jack knows was her first official mission with the team, she’s still as put together and strong as she was when Jack first met her. Matty doesn’t call, as they’d discussed. 

Matty is the hammer that comes in when all hope is lost, when every single one of them has gone down. Matty calling Jack means _pick up now_ . Matty calling Jack means _all hope is lost_. Jack’s on this fucking mission to _stop_ that.This _is_ , however, the first voicemail he’s had from Mac since leaving and going fully dark on all communications, and it’s enough to make his heart clench. Just hearing Mac’s voice is enough to clench it tighter. But this is the only communication he has with home, with his _family_ , and it’s worth the heartbreak.

“ _Hi man, it’s me! God, you’ve only been gone a month and I already feel like I’ve lost a limb!_ ” Mac laughs, but there’s an edge to it that has Jack frowning, huddled in his bunk as the guys in the front room laugh. It _has_ only been a month since Jack left the Phoenix Foundation in his rear view mirror, sometimes it feels like it’s been less, sometimes it honestly feels like Jack’s already been gone _years_ . It’s been the long time since Jack has been out in the field and hasn’t had Mac at his side. “ _Can’t believe it’s actually been a month, Jack; not gonna lie, I still think it’s a dream sometimes._ ”

Jack can relate. Oftentimes, he’ll wake up from an unsettled sleep and turn over. He doesn’t know whether he expects to wake up to Mac besides him or just _close_ to him, he only knows that half the time, before he’s even properly woke up, he finds a hand reaching out, expecting to find Mac there. Sometimes, he finds himself turning with a quip on his tongue that he knows Mac will know, will enjoy, only to find someone different, or even an empty space that Mac should fill.

That’s what it feels like, an empty space that Jack tries desperately to fill but nothing quite fits the puzzle piece Mac had filled, unnoticed for such a long time.

Jack kind of thinks nothing _would_ be able to fill it. Thinks he doesn’t want to find anything that would. 

“ _I_ _t’s not been too bad here, at least.”_ Mac’s now saying, and honestly, apart from the _edge_ he has to his tone, the little lilt he has in his voice that has something in Jack’s mind going _danger, Will Robinson!_ that Jack had learnt to listen too, _especially_ when it comes to Angus MacGyver, Jack would have thought nothing was wrong. 

Something _is_ wrong though, maybe not enough for the _big_ alarm buttons to ring their klaxons in his head, but enough to sound like something is just to the _left_ of where it should be, a step out of beat from Mac’s normal and Jack doesn’t like it, _hates_ that he’s a thousand and odd miles away from Mac and that it was his _choice_ , in so much that he had any choice at all, hates that he can’t shake Mac and try to parse out what could be going on in that big old genius brain that’s like a landmine on the best of days and a nuclear rocket on his worst.

“ _Riley and Bozer are good, having fun with all the missions we’ve been on, though we could all do with almost getting shot a little less. Desi is pretty badass, though she’s not entirely warmed up to all of us yet. I think we’re breaking down those barriers, though. It’s still strange to look in front of me and see her and not-”_

Here, Jack has to clench his eyes shut as Mac’s voice _breaks;_ breaks in fucking _two_ even with the static of the line and the shitty voicemail Jack’s got on this phone. 

“ _I keep expecting to see you, y’know?”_ Mac lets out a watery laugh, and it breaks Jack’s fucking heart. _This kid_. Jack just wants to go _home_. He doesn’t even think he’s homesick, it’s more _heart_ sick. _It’s probably stupid, it_ sounds _stupid, honestly, it’s the first time I’ve said it aloud since you went but-”_

There’s a long pause, and Jack honestly pulls the phone away from his ear to see if Mac hung up and that the voicemail is over. But there’s still a moment of what seems like raspy breathing, the type of someone trying so hard to not let anyone hear them cry. _This fucking kid_ , Jack thinks again, his own eyes wet, a hand over his mouth to try and hide his trembling lips, muffling his own raspy breath.

“I _miss you, man_ ,” Mac says, whispers it into the phone, like it’s a secret, like it’s not common knowledge that Jack would give everything for Mac, as if it’s not a foregone conclusion that Jack would tear himself apart for Mac. Jack wonders if Mac thinks Jack is even getting these, is even listening to them, and if he would have been so open if he knew. It’s always been easier like this though, for the both of them. Right next to his daddy’s dog tags in his cigar box, Jack has a collection of notes scribbled in Mac’s immaculate handwriting, heart wrenching and tragic, a collection of broken heart pieces. “ _I miss you so fucking much Jack, it’s like a physical hurt-_ ”

The line cuts abruptly, as if Mac drops the phone, as if he’s too overwhelmed to even continue speaking. Jack spends the longest time just sitting there, elbows on his knees, staring blankly at the wall, phone still against his ear, a hand over his mouth to hide the tremble of his lips.

He doesn’t even bother to hide the tears.

**[2]**

Jack has to wait only a few weeks for the next one though the timing is strange. Timestamped at 0245, as if Mac had rolled out of bed and hadn’t been able to sleep. Jack imagines him rolling out of that bed and expecting Jack to be there, to be present at his side just like Jack’s always been. 

But Jack isn’t there anymore, is he? He’s not even in the fucking country, not even fucking _stateside_. If there is something that Jack is ever going to regret for the rest of his days, outside of leaving Riley when she was little, it would be this. It would leaving Mac how he did, with a smile and a handshake and saying ‘ _good friend’_ , as if he and Mac hadn’t been intrinsically intertwined since they first met, as if he and Mac aren’t fucking _bonded_ by more than sweat and blood and tears, as if they aren’t half of one anothers souls; not because they need to be, but because they _want_ to be.

He’s in his bunk again, just as uncomfortable, even if the surroundings aren’t the same. His AR-50 is settled in his lap, various 1911’s scattered around the bunk in varying stages of being cleaned. His TAC vest is close by too, still a little bloodied, it’ll need a wipe down that Jack just doesn’t have the energy to do right now. Worthy had offered but Jack had refused, had needed the mundane actions to clear his head, to make him feel _useful_ , but he just couldn’t be bothered at the moment, just wanted to honestly crawl into his own bed back home and sleep for the next two years. 

It hasn’t even been three months and Jack is already sick of everything. Sick of the heartache, sick of the homesickness, sick of missing his family and his team, sick of missing Riley and _Mac_. Jack’s been called over emotional before, had heard it almost more often than _idiot,_ than _grunt_ , but now he feels ready to overflow, for his sadness to bubble over from where he’s tried to keep it down, keep it closed. He’d thought of the little boxes that Mac has, that he uses to shove all his emotions in, compartmentalizing everything, probably even the things that never needed to be, or the things that should have been sorted out long before. 

Jack doesn’t have that. He can compartmentalize just as well as Mac, he’s a soldier, he’s a Delta, _special forces_ , of course he’s able to compartmentalize, but something about this, about being so far away from home, away from where he really wants to be has his heart _sore_ , a bone deep physical ache that leaves him almost bent double, gasping for breath. 

He’s so fucking _sick_ of this.

He carefully makes sure that his AR-50 is on the other end of the bed, his 1911’s next to it, stacked so carefully he can count every mechanism, picks the burner phone up as if it needs as delicate handling as C4. He’s had a feeling all day, like a stone sinking to the bottom of a lake, a weight at the bottom of his belly that he hasn’t been able to explain. He’d thought it had to do with Kovac at first, had been so _sure_ it had been, but they’d found nothing but yet another fucking empty safehouse, just cleared out, as if they’d missed by fucking _minutes_ , with only a few henchmen to be took out.

“ _Hi Jack_ ,” Mac’s voice is- it’s wrong, wavering, almost delicate. There’s something so different and yet so similar in his voice from the last voicemail that Jack sits up straight, elbows on his knees again, staring blankly at the concrete wall opposite him, it’s like Mac is’t even _there_. To the left, Worthy is watching him with wary eyes, but Jack isn’t worrying about Caleb at the moment; it’s _Mac_ who sounds wrong, echoing and making the dead flatness of his voice all the more noticeable. He sounds how Jack feels, and that is _very, very bad_ . “ _Hope everythings all good over there, or as good as they can be_.”

He’s stalling, Jack thinks vaguely, feeling his hand curling around the phone until the plastic casing creaks. Until Jack’s hand physically _aches_ from holding it so tightly. He’s stalling and though Mac likes to talk about his science shit because he’s the smartest one in the room, this is _different_. 

“ _I just wanted to say hi, I guess,”_ Mac says, and there’s a quiet exhale over the phone, turning the line staticky. Jack thinks he can even _see_ the tremor of Mac’s mouth, the way his bottom lip always does when he’s so close to losing the end of his tether, so close to just _breaking down_ that it’s inevitable, like he’s waited so long that it’s all just going to _burst_ out. “ _I-It’s almost three am here, I dr-dread to think what time it is where you-where you are. It’s still so strange, I keep-I keep looking for you. I woke up and-and I didn’t know what to do. It felt so- it felt so_ real _, Jack_ , _I was scared I was-that I was back there, and I couldn’t do anything-_.”

There is only one person that can make Mac sound this mix of terrified and angered.

“ _He hasn’t even touched me for so long, I haven’t even_ seen _him, but I just-I can still feel the needle, Jack. I don’t- I don’t know what’s_ wrong _with me_ -.”

_Oh kid_ , Jack thinks, eyes clenched closes, burning furiously, heart in his throat. Along his left side, Worthy’s pressed himself close, a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“ _I-I had a close call today, I got injected and I can’t, I can’t do needles again, Jack, you know I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do it, it was a paralytic, I felt like I couldn’t_ breathe _, and it was all so real, God Jack it was all so real and you- you weren’t there, where are you Jack, please, you need to come back, Jack, where are you, Jack, Jack_ please _-”_

There’s two more minutes of voicemail, each as heartbreaking as the last. In the last few seconds, as Jack listens with his head buried in Caleb’s shoulder, his own body trembling with the force of his cries, Mac only says this;

_“I’m sorry, Jack, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”_

Jack falls asleep to it echoing in his ears.

**[3]**

Heavy breathing, a cut off whimper. “ _It_ hurts _, Jack.”_ Jack closes his eyes against the soft sob Mac gives, muffled. Dial tone.

Jack listens to it thrice.

**[4]**

Jack honestly got the point that he’s wondering what even the point is. He’s wondering why he left, why he left his family, left Riley, left _Mac_ ; for _this_ shit? For constant shit, disappointment after disappointment when they inevitably fail to catch Kovac? Chasing their fucking tails and shitty leads that left them even more run down, even more hurt, even more disappointed?

Jack’s strike team is some of the best and brightest, made largely of people that have hunted down Kovac before, back when Jack had thought he’d fired a bullet in that bastard’s head and had thought he’d _known_ that he’d put that bastard in the ground. In his darkest moments, Jack thinks he should have been the one to dig the grave himself, should have fucking took his head, should have made sure he was dead, should have paraded his body around for everyone to see what happens when you think you’ve got the best of Jack fucking Dalton, should have fucking bashed his head in with his bare hands like he’d wanted to but hadn’t because he thought he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself, even though he’d done worst things.

But he didn’t. _He didn’t_ , and now he’s going through it all over again, he’s put the guys through _this_ all over again; he can barely look at Brookes, who’d followed him from the CIA to the DXS tactical Alpha team to hunt Kovac down, _again_. This was on him, no matter what anyone said, no matter what Mac had said before he’d left, no matter that Mac had said, _take me with you_ , and _let me help_. Mac had said _you don’t have to do this alone_ and Jack had said _but this is my ghost_ and carefully hadn’t said _but I deserve to_. Mac knows all about ghosts, Jack knows, but Jack has always been careful about letting his boy see the ghost behind the sniper rifle that watched his back and thought that he could be more than what he’d made himself into.

Hunting down Kovac had been the nail in Jack Dalton’s CIA career coffin, had been the operation that had him think _I’m done_ _I’m done_ , that had him think _I can’t stand the monster that I see in the mirror_. Had him think _I’m just like him_. Hunting down Kovac hadn’t made Jack into the monster that he knew himself to be when he’d left the CIA and reupped in the army; Kovac hadn’t made him into someone that couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror, but he had been the one to give Jack that final push, to move from _brutal_ to fucking _cold_. Steve McGarrett had said that Jack had been a legend when McGarrett had started, and Jack had seen the look of awe in the SEAL’s face, had seen the rumours of legends that McGarrett had heart and had felt sick, had turned away and closed his eyes. Had thought of all the things that had dirtied his hands, the information he’d gained, had thought _I never wanted this, but this is what I have_.

Mac is an excellent agent, one of the very best, probably better than anyone wants to admit, especially since Mac has this uncanny ability to chameleon himself, to become what he needs to be. He’s resourceful and innovative, and there’s been so many times on this mission that Jack had thought _if only Mac was here_ , and maybe it’s true; maybe Mac would have been an amazing asset, Riley would have also, their entire skillset is almost engineered to what Jack is currently doing; when both of them get a scent up their nose, they’re worse than bloodhounds. But it comes back to Jack being a monster, to being just as bad as the man he’s hunting, and he knows they catch a little of the darkness that Jack holds beneath his mask, especially when any of the team is injured, but _this_ is different. _This_ isn’t protection, this isn’t Jack driven into a rage that blinds his eyes to anything but his kids and whoever’s hurt them.

_This_ is cold, the kind of rage Jack has always feared would take over him, _again_ , that Tiberius Kovac had driven him too, all those years ago. _This_ was wanting to beat Kovac to death with his bare hands, no weapon but his body needed, just brute strength, five minutes with the man in a dark room and no one else around. _This_ was pretending that he wanted to make the world a safer place all the while knowing that he wanted to put down a sick dog, eradicate an illness, _this_ was revenge _._ Reupping the army, heading to Afghanistan as a Delta Force Overwatch to oversee the EOD tech’s had been a last ditch attempt to shake the darkness that the CIA had shrouded him in, something not even serving with the Deltas had. The man that had first joined the Delta’s and the man that had then stepped out onto the Afghani sand after the CIA had been the barest hint of the same man. 

He’d been prepared to meet his end there, had prepared to fully face the fact that he wouldn’t be leaving the desert; _fuck_ , when he first left it was only because of Caleb that Jack hadn’t eaten his own gun, hadn’t let everything consume him, and to this day, that’s a debt that Jack can never pay back, though he tried too. But then something had changed. A bomb nerd with a stupid name, sunshine hair and a _shitton_ of issues had literally fallen into his lap; reckless and stubborn and so goddamn fucking lacking of self preservation that Jack had felt like shaking him, wanted to hunt down everyone who had hurt him and ask _why?_

Hadn’t even fucking hesitated before reupping again, extending his tour on the condition that he was paired with his boy. Jack’s never regretted it since. Never, between everything that’s happened, between Cairo, and Nikki, between Murdoc and Mac leaving after his father and never looking back, things had been cracked, had been damaged, strained, but Jack had never regretted it. 

He knows though, that this is going to be the one thing he regrets for the rest of his life. For _leaving_ Mac, when so many have left him before. Jack’s always been the one who said _I’m not leaving_ , the one whose said _wild horses couldn’t make me leave_ , the one whose said _nothing you do will ever make me leave_. Jack never imagined it would be _his_ wild horse, it would be something _Jack_ had done that would make Jack leave. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get these voicemails out of his head, of hearing Mac, wild voiced and _aching_ , hearing the tremble of his mouth just- _pleading_ with him asking _where are you, Jack_ , and _pleading_ with him, saying that he’s so fucking _sorry_ , as if he has anything to be sorry about, as if Jack wasn’t the one who’d ripped out both of their hearts and shot them for good measure. 

Mac’s only ever loved the things that have harmed him, and Jack’s only ever hurt everyone he’s loved.

Maybe that’s why he keeps listening to the voicemails, keeps them saved over and over again on the burner phone, listens to them in the dead of night, memorizes the way Mac’s voice _breaks_ over the word _sorry_ , mouths out the way Mac sobs out his name, the way it cracks, the way he inhales over the words as if he needed to get them out in such a rush he couldn’t even risk breathing.

Maybe that’s why he’s listening to the fourth call for the _tenth_ time, hearing the lies in Mac’s voice, the way he stumbles over the words, trying so hard to be normal, as if every voicemail Jack’s gotten from him isn’t just a thinly veiled breakdown because Mac only feels safe with Jack and the dark communications voicemail of the burner that Jack probably shouldn’t have is the closest thing he’ll ever get to feeling that safe ever again, because Jack’s took that safety net, has burnt it to the ground and _spat_ on the ashes.

“ _Hi, Jack_ ,” Mac’s saying, as if he can’t get the name from behind his teeth, as if he says it often enough that Jack will appear next to him. Jack wishes it worked like that. God he misses this kid like a bone deep ache. “ _I’m sorry about the last few voicemails, hope you don’t feel like I’m just using your inbox as my own personal therapist. It’s just-_ ” A rush of air turns the line staticky, and Jack clamps his mouth shut, clenches his jaw tight, feels the creak of plastic in his hand. “ _I miss you man, so fucking much_.”

Mac swearing is never a good sign, Jack knows. He knows the kid’s ticks and quirks like the back of his hand, like the recoil of his favourite sniper rifle, and knows that Mac’s never liked swearing mostly because his dad didn’t when he was a child. Jack’s always been the curser of the group, the one most likely to drop the occasional _fuck_ or _shit_. He grew up on a ranch, and though his Ma was more likely to threaten to wash his mouth out with soap or horse manure if he so much as thought to swear in her house, she’d been more liable to drop them then he had.

“ _I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record, huh? Pretty sure everyone else is fed up with me at the moment as well_ ,” Here, Mac laughs, sounding disconnected and rusty, as if he hasn’t laughed for a while, like he’s not _used_ to it. “ _It’s still so strange without you, man. Honestly, the amount of times I’ve looked over my shoulder, started to say your name- fuck, Jack, it’s_ hard _, maybe they were right when they said we were co-dependent.”_

Jack laughs as Mac does, both of the sounds damp with tears and Jack can physically _feel_ his heart twisting, hearing the rundown edge, the crackles of emotions he can _hear_ , as if Mac can’t drown it enough, as if he hasn’t the energy. 

“ _Just-I hope you know, Jack, that whatever happens on this mission, whatever you do? Whatever you have to do, I don’t blame you. It isn’t your fault and - You always have a home here,_ ” It’s Jack’s turn to exhale sharply, though it doesn’t make the line blur with static. He ducks his head, feels the burn of his eyes, the wetness of tears against his eyelashes. He clenches his eyes shut. _This fucking kid_ , he thinks, because of course Mac would know, would know the monster in the dark that haunts his overwatch’s footsteps. “ _I know you sometimes think that you don’t deserve us, that. That you’re a monster, but Jack- Jack, please, you need to know that we’ve only ever loved you. Even in Afghanistan, even when you wanted to ring my bell so hard I actually shut up for once, I knew that you’d protect me, even then. I know you hide what being in the CIA and stuff has done to you, man, but- you go kaboom, I go kaboom, right?”_

He sounds so fucking _sincere_ , as if he means every word, and Jack’s never really doubted Mac before, but of course he’d doubt him about this, would doubt him about _himself_ , about the way that Jack is worth it, that Jack isn’t a monster, as if Mac shouldn’t be trying so fucking hard to get away from him, as if he shouldn’t be put down like a rabid dog, because that’s what he is, _that’s what he is_ , and somehow, no one else sees it but Jack.

Jack exhales shakily, feels his shoulders curl up, phone creaking in his hand again, tries to stop them shaking, but they tremble still. Jack prides himself on steady hands, they’re his whole job, just as Mac’s are his, and his are fucking _trembling_.

What a fucking joke.

“I wish I could believe you, Mac,” Jack whispers into the phone receiver, as if Mac could actually hear him. “I really wish I could believe you.”

_You go kaboom, I go kaboom;_ ha,as if Jack would ever let Mac die before him.


End file.
